


Valkyries

by Prochytes



Category: Stan Lee's Lucky Man (TV), Torchwood
Genre: Crossover, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 04:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16078205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: Suri meets a woman whose future is behind her.





	Valkyries

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Torchwood_ to 2x11: “Exit Wounds” and _Stan Lee’s Lucky Man_ to 3x06: “The Art of War”.

Closing a case always served up its own special cocktail of elation. It wasn’t _entirely_ about the puzzles (there was a reason Suri Chohan was not a logician) or about the doing good (nor yet a human rights lawyer, nor a doctor). It was a dubious froth shaken together from all of the above, and the high tended to be followed by a nasty crash. At such times, Suri almost envied Harry his fifty-two cardboard harbingers of bliss or woe. Almost.

After the collar of Rachel Spikes, Suri had sought solace for the evening on the South Bank, not far upriver from HQ, where the bars and restaurants jostled like commuters and the blowsy hub-bub of patrons spilled down as far as the glinting Thames. On nights like this, more even than usual, she missed Ben. It was hard, as you reached that point in the dusk when the Embankment’s lights bled into the darkening sky, to feel like DS Suri Chohan, Long Arm of the Law, and not just Suri Chohan, a small woman in a big city, whose neon make-up had started to run.

“May I sit here?”

The voice was tentative, and rather posh. Suri looked up from the journeyman Chardonnay she had been nursing. The speaker appeared to be in her early thirties. She was short – about Suri’s own size (Suri, a connoisseur of such matters, recognized the sort of heels that let you run and still see over hedges). A plum-coloured leather jacket flattered her supple figure.

Suri smiled, and shuffled along the bench. “Be my guest.”

“Thank you.” The woman sat down, placing her own glass of white wine next to Suri’s. “This place is heaving.”

Comparative silence descended, for a time. The newcomer spent most of that time staring at the Thames, and gnawing her lip. Every now and again, she would steal a sidelong glance at Suri. When the Chardonnay was low in the glass, Suri’s curiosity finally overmastered her.

“I’m sorry… have we met? It seems as though you know me.”

The newcomer blushed. “Not exactly. I… I saw you briefly, at a press conference.”

“You’re a journalist?” Suri frowned.

“I work in tech security.”

Suri’s brow cleared. “Ah. The driverless car murder. That was unsettling. Living in the future, eh?”

“The future,” the newcomer repeated. “That’s rather what I suspected. I can almost smell the paint drying on it. Every present is a future, wondering what just happened.”

Suri felt it her duty as a midweek barfly to rouse the stranger from her melancholy. “You’re a poet… um…”

“Toshiko. My name is Toshiko. I’m far from a poet.” The stranger – Toshiko – smiled pensively, and sipped her wine. “As I said, I work in tech.”

“Anything interesting?” Suri prompted.

“My colleagues and I were looking into two paired devices from China. They’re interesting, and not easy to come by. We managed to obtain one while it was… between owners. But the other one will ultimately develop a glitch; a glitch that has consequences before it even really happens. There was an…. accident of resonance in my lab. And so I took an unexpected trip.”

Suri thought back to elaborately decorated cul-de-sacs in her own investigations. “Can you claim expenses?”

“Not, I suspect, as much as the journey will turn out to have cost. Although, if my calculations are right, there shouldn’t be too many stops before I’m back where I started.”

Suri grimaced in sympathy. “In that case, I hope that you’ll let me buy you another.”

“If you’re getting yourself one, too, I won’t say no. Thank you.”

***

The glasses had just been lined up on the bar when Suri’s mobile ’phone vibrated in her pocket. She fished it out, to cradle against her ear.

“Evening, Suri.”

“Hello, Harry. Is something wrong?”

“Not at all – right as rain.” Suri couldn’t tell exactly from the background noise where Harry was. It sounded as though he might be on public transport. There had been a time, when Harry’s problem was at its worst, when a phone-call at this hour would invariably have played out to the accompaniment of a clicking roulette table, and a chorus of “ _vingt et un_ ”. Suri still felt a small surge of pleasure that those days seemed to be behind him.

“Just a call to check that you’re OK,” Harry continued. “I know that the end of a case can be a tricky time.”

“That means a lot to me, Harry, but I’m fine.”

“Good to hear. Sounds like you’re in a bar?”

“I am.” Suri looked back at the bench. Toshiko had returned to contemplating the Thames. “I seem to have acquired a beautiful stranger.”

“Seriously? Jesus, Suri, we can’t have sexy, enigmatic women queuing at your door. Leave me _something_ I do better than you, for pity’s sake.”

Suri chuckled. “I’ll try to bear that in mind. Anyway, must dash. I need to take a drink back to the mysterious Toshiko.”

“Toshiko?” Harry’s tone changed abruptly. “Toshiko Sato?”

“She hasn’t said her last name.”

“Japanese? Wears a plum-coloured jacket? Bit of a short-arse?”

“Remember who you’re talking to, Harry…”

“ _Petite_ , then. Hot, in an earnest way?”

Suri watched the Embankment lights jewel Toshiko’s throat as she swallowed the last of her wine. “Definitely.”

“Suri, I met that woman a few months ago. There’s something very odd about her.”

“How so?”

“She told me that her name was Toshiko Sato, and that she had a professional interest in art objects. She asked me some questions about my brace… about Rich’s business. She was polite, sweet, maybe a touch reserved.”

“Sounds like the woman I’ve just met.”

“Thing is – there’s no such person as Toshiko Sato. I looked her up after our conversation. The only ‘Toshiko Sato’ who matches her description is a woman who once worked at the MoD. That Toshiko Sato disappeared more than a decade ago, only to turn up dead a few years later from a gunshot wound.”

“Hmm. Did they catch the killer?”

“The investigating officer thought that the family knew more than they were telling. Nothing he could prove.”

Suri shivered. “Creepy. But it’s not that unusual a name.”

“True.”

“Harry…. do you think she’s a threat?”

There was a long pause before Harry spoke again. Suri could just about hear someone swearing at a cyclist on the other end of the line. Harry must be flush if he was in a taxi. “No. I don’t. Ms. Sato never quizzed me about any active investigation. If anything, she seemed afraid I’d tell her something she wasn’t supposed to know. My hackles rose, a bit, when she asked about… about Rich’s business. But, even then, she looked… resigned, more than anything else. Resigned, and a little sad.”

“Should I bring her in?”

“No. My gut tells me that Toshiko Sato’s on the side of the angels. Grab the drink, and give that dead woman walking a good time. Like a Valkyrie.”

“Huh?”

“The choosers of the slain. They make a fuss over warriors doomed to die. Might even snog them, although I’m not sure whether that detail is authentic, or wishful thinking.”

“You’re an erudite man, Harry Clayton.”

“I’m a man whose teenaged daughter can’t be arsed to do her own mythology homework, is what I am. See you tomorrow, Suri.”

“See you then.”

***

Toshiko looked up as Suri deposited the drinks. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. Are you a spy?”

Suri had been hoping for a splutter, or a stagey glance to left and right. Toshiko tasted the wine, and held it to her lips. “Ah. You’ve been talking to Harry Clayton.”

“You told him that your business is art objects.”

Toshiko shrugged. “Technology is art. At least, if you do it properly.”

“You’re prevaricating.”

“Yes. I am.” Toshiko’s eyes narrowed as she regarded Suri over the rim of the wine-glass. “So, it seems I give him a different story. That’s careless of me - though, since you’ve told me, I must remember to do that. I’m probably still a little drunk when I talk to him.”

Suri frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s complicated.” Toshiko placed her glass back on the table. “You’re too unnerved for that to be all that Harry shared with you. I’m guessing that after he speaks to me, he looks me up. But the only way information about me would be back in the public domain would be if…” She sighed. “Oh. I see. He must have told you how Toshiko Sato died.”

Suri swallowed. There wasn’t any anger or threat in the other woman’s face. Only, as Harry had said, a certain sadness. “Yes. The police reports…”

“Don’t tell me. I already know too much. The future has to stay a peep-show, in reverse. Touch,” Toshiko’s hand was so close to Suri’s on the table that she could feel the warmth. “But don’t look.”

“You aren’t that Toshiko Sato, though.”

“How could I be?” Toshiko cocked her head. “What did Harry think you should do with what you know?”

Suri reddened. “He thought that a dead woman walking deserved a good time. And that she could use an obliging Valkyrie to deliver it.”

“That sounds to me like excellent advice.”

Suri (Ben had said) always tried to take control of kisses. The covert strength that belied her short frame usually made that easy. But Toshiko (whose lips tasted of white Burgundy and balm) was somehow, in this heady wrestling match, the stronger. It wasn’t Suri’s night for finishing ahead.

***

When they were done, they sat back, lulled by the murmur of the oblivious crowds.

“Thank you,” said Toshiko in a quiet voice. She gently disengaged Suri’s arm, and stood. “It was an honour to meet you properly, Suri Chohan; but I have to go. My movements, at the moment, aren’t really under my control.”

Suri looked up at her. “You still haven’t explained what you mean by that.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Toshiko paused. “In fact, I _know_ you won’t, when you sober up, so it doesn’t matter if I do.”

“You said that one of those items of Chinese tech you mentioned is going to develop a glitch. Were you sent to London to stop that happening?”

“No. That’s not the sort of thing I’m allowed to do, under these circumstances. I can observe; gather data, within _strict_ limits. But no more. The future has its rules. And the thing is…” Toshiko took a deep breath, as though reaching a decision. “This accidental trip of mine, with its erratic stops, is happening back to front. That’s how I know that I’m heading home.”

Suri frowned. She was feeling entirely too drunk for this. “But I thought you said…”

“I’ve already seen the glitch develop. My initial stop in London was when the other device turned black. I did first see you at a press conference. But it wasn’t one about a driverless car.” Toshiko sighed. “Thank you again for the kiss, Suri Chohan. I’m afraid you weren’t the only one who was the Valkyrie.”

Suri opened her mouth to reply, but a bunch of revellers interrupted her view of Toshiko Sato. When they had passed, the woman in the plum-coloured jacket was gone. Night joggers, blithe as sparrows, swooped through the circles of light beside the river, blundering from darkness into darkness.

FINIS


End file.
